The DOI matches its Crossref record; 38 of the 38 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
The UVES Large Program for testing fundamental physics I. Bounds on a change in α towards quasar HE 2217−2818
Open accessAbstract
Context. Absorption-line systems detected in quasar spectra can be used to compare the value of the fine-structure constant, α, measured today on Earth with its value in distant galaxies. In recent years, some evidence has emerged of small temporal and also spatial variations in α on cosmological scales. These variations may reach a fractional level of ≈ 10 ppm (parts per million).
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“Trying to confirm these results was the main motivation for an ESO/UVES Large Program (Molaro et al. 2013;Rahmani et al. 2013;Evans et al. 2014), a dedicated program to test for the variation of fundamental constants with an optimized sample and methodology with about 40 VLT nights of observations over 2010-2013 with a typical resolution of R $ 60 000 and a signal-to-noise per pixel of order 100,”
From Fundamental constants: from measurement to the universe, a window on gravitation and cosmology (2025) · cites this paper as Molaro et al. 2013
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Numerical recipes in C: the art of scientific computing
(1993) · Choice Reviews Online · doi:10.5860/choice.30-5638 · Cited by 17,933
Numerical recipes in Pascal: the art of scientific computing
(1990) · Choice Reviews Online · doi:10.5860/choice.27-5158 · Cited by 12,040
Edlén, B. (1966) · Metrologia · doi:10.1088/0026-1394/2/2/002 · Cited by 1,263
Search for Time Variation of the Fine Structure Constant
Webb, J. K., Flambaum, V. V., Churchill, C. W., Drinkwater, M. J., & Barrow, J. D. (1999) · Physical Review Letters · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.82.884 · Cited by 754 · cited 1×
“A first analysis using the many-multiplet method on quasar absorption spectra obtained at the Keck telescope revealed hints that in the early universe the fine structure constant was smaller than today by ∼6 parts-per-million (ppm; Webb et al. 1999; Murphy et al. 2001, 2003).”
MethodFurther evidence for a variable fine-structure constant from Keck/HIRES QSO absorption spectra
Murphy, M. T., Webb, J. K., & Flambaum, V. V. (2003) · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · doi:10.1046/j.1365-8711.2003.06970.x · Cited by 514 · cited 3×
“A first analysis using the many-multiplet method on quasar absorption spectra obtained at the Keck telescope revealed hints that in the early universe the fine structure constant was smaller than today by ∼6 parts-per-million (ppm; Webb et al. 1999; Murphy et al. 2001, 2003).”
MethodSelf-citationIndications of a Spatial Variation of the Fine Structure Constant
Webb, J. K., King, J. A., Murphy, M. T., Flambaum, V. V., Carswell, R. F., & Bainbridge, M. B. (2011) · Physical Review Letters · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.107.191101 · Cited by 482 · cited 12×
“In particular, the majority of the spectra analysed by King et al. (2012) were obtained in ‘service’ observing mode at the VLT.”
BackgroundMethodInfluentialSelf-citationMurphy, M. T., Webb, J. K., Flambaum, V. V., Dzuba, V. A., Churchill, C. W., Prochaska, J. X., Barrow, J. D., & Wolfe, A. M. (2001) · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · doi:10.1046/j.1365-8711.2001.04840.x · Cited by 365 · cited 1×
“A first analysis using the many-multiplet method on quasar absorption spectra obtained at the Keck telescope revealed hints that in the early universe the fine structure constant was smaller than today by ∼6 parts-per-million (ppm; Webb et al. 1999; Murphy et al. 2001, 2003).”
MethodSelf-citationHigh-precision wavelength calibration of astronomical spectrographs with laser frequency combs
Murphy, M. T., Udem, T., Holzwarth, R., Sizmann, A., Pasquini, L., Araujo-Hauck, C., Dekker, H., D'Odorico, S., Fischer, M., Hänsch, T. W., et al. (2007) · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2007.12147.x · Cited by 346 · cited 4×
“The procedure for the selection of ThAr lines and the analysis leading to a wavelength solution follows that outlined in Murphy et al. (2007a).”
BackgroundMethodResultInfluentialSelf-citationSpace-Time Variation of Physical Constants and Relativistic Corrections in Atoms
Dzuba, V. A., Flambaum, V. V., & Webb, J. K. (1999) · Physical Review Letters · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.82.888 · Cited by 307 · cited 2×
“C O troduced, which allows all observed transitions to be compared, gaining access to the typically much larger dependence of the ground state energy levels on α (Dzuba et al. 1999).”
BackgroundA new list of thorium and argon spectral lines in the visible
Lovis, C., & Pepe, F. A. (2007) · Astronomy and Astrophysics · doi:10.1051/0004-6361:20077249 · Cited by 290 · cited 2×
“We note that uncertainties of the laboratory wavelengths of individual thorium lines vary from about 15 m s−1 up to more than 100 m s−1 for the poorly known lines (Lovis & Pepe 2007; Murphy et al. 2007a).”
BackgroundMethodSpatial variation in the fine-structure constant - new results from VLT/UVES
King, J. A., Webb, J. K., Murphy, M. T., Flambaum, V. V., Carswell, R. F., Bainbridge, M. B., Wilczynska, M. R., & Koch, F. E. (2012) · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2012.20852.x · Cited by 261 · cited 8×
“Overall, the variation across the sky can be simply and consistently represented by a monopole (i.e. a constant offset in α from the current laboratory value) plus a spatial dipole in the direction with right ascension 17.3 ± 1.0 hours and declination −61 ± 10 degrees (King et al. 2012).”
BackgroundMethodInfluentialSelf-citationHigh-precision wavelength calibration of astronomical spectrographs with laser frequency combsPreprint
Murphy, M. T., Udem, T., Holzwarth, R., Sizmann, A., Pasquini, L., Araujo-Hauck, C., Dekker, H., D’Odorico, S., Fischer, M., Hänsch, T. W., et al. (2024) · doi:10.25916/sut.26230757.v1 · Cited by 254
Self-citationProbing the cosmological variation of the fine-structure constant: Results based on VLT-UVES sample
Chand, H., Srianand, R., Petitjean, P., & Aracil, B. (2004) · Astronomy & Astrophysics · doi:10.1051/0004-6361:20035701 · Cited by 239 · cited 1×
“…of smaller data sets obtained from the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile by other groups did not confirm the variation of α (Quast et al. 2004; Chand et al. 2004; Levshakov et al. 2005, 2006), though in some cases these analysis and uncertainty estimates have been challenged (Murphy et al.…”
ResultSelf-citationProbing the variability of the fine-structure constant with the VLT UVES
Quast, R., Reimers, D., & Levshakov, S. A. (2003) · Springer Link (Chiba Institute of Technology) · doi:10.1051/0004-6361:20040013/pdf · Cited by 167
Self-citationProbing the variability of the fine-structure constant with the VLT/UVES
Quast, R., Reimers, D., & Levshakov, S. A. (2004) · Astronomy and Astrophysics · doi:10.1051/0004-6361:20040013 · Cited by 163 · cited 1×
“However, the analysis of smaller data sets obtained from the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile by other groups did not confirm the variation of α (Quast et al. 2004; Chand et al. 2004; Levshakov et al. 2005, 2006), though in some cases these analysis and uncertainty estimates have been challenged…”
ResultSelf-citationProbing the cosmological variation of the fine-structure constant: Results based on VLT-UVES sample
Chand, H., Srianand, R., Petitjean, P., & Aracil, B. (2004) · Springer Link (Chiba Institute of Technology) · doi:10.1051/0004-6361:20035701/pdf · Cited by 161
Self-citationSpatial variation in the fine-structure constant - new results from VLT/UVESPreprint
King, J. A., Webb, J. K., Murphy, M. T., Flambaum, V. V., Carswell, R. F., Bainbridge, M., Wilczynska, M. R., & Koch, F. (2016) · Cited by 146
Self-citationHigh-precision calibration of spectrographs
Wilken, T., Lovis, C., Manescau, A., Steinmetz, T., Pasquini, L., Curto, G. L., Hänsch, T. W., Holzwarth, R., & Udem, T. (2010) · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters · doi:10.1111/j.1745-3933.2010.00850.x · Cited by 138 · cited 1×
“Wilken et al. (2010) on spectra obtained with the HARPS spectrograph at the 3.6m ESO telescope on La Silla, and calibrated by means of a Laser Frequency Comb detected very small differences in the size of physical pixels due to CCD manufacturing.”
MethodPhysical Constants in Extra-Galactic Nebulæ
Savedoff, M. P. (1956) · Nature · doi:10.1038/178688b0 · Cited by 107 · cited 1×
“The seminal papers of Savedoff (1956) and Bahcall et al. (1967) took advantage of the dependence of the relative separation of fine-structure doublet transitions on α and used the alkali doublets observed in the first extragalactic sources to limit ∆α/α at the level of a few percent.”
BackgroundRevision of VLT/UVES constraints on a varying fine-structure constant
Murphy, M. T., Webb, J. K., & Flambaum, V. V. (2008) · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2007.12695.x · Cited by 104 · cited 1×
“…Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile by other groups did not confirm the variation of α (Quast et al. 2004; Chand et al. 2004; Levshakov et al. 2005, 2006), though in some cases these analysis and uncertainty estimates have been challenged (Murphy et al. 2007b, 2008) (but see Srianand et al. 2007).”
ResultSelf-citationAn Analysis of the Absorption Spectrum of 3c 191
Bahcall, J. N., Sargent, W. L. W., & Schmidt, M. (1967) · The Astrophysical Journal · doi:10.1086/180042 · Cited by 100 · cited 1×
“The seminal papers of Savedoff (1956) and Bahcall et al. (1967) took advantage of the dependence of the relative separation of fine-structure doublet transitions on α and used the alkali doublets observed in the first extragalactic sources to limit ∆α/α at the level of a few percent.”
BackgroundRevision of VLT/UVES constraints on a varying fine-structure constant
Murphy, M. T., Webb, J. K., & Flambaum, V. V. (2006) · UNSWorks (UNSW Sydney) · Cited by 97
Self-citationGriest, K., Whitmore, J. B., Wolfe, A. M., Prochaska, J. X., Howk, J. C., & Marcy, G. W. (2010) · The Astrophysical Journal · doi:10.1088/0004-637x/708/1/158 · Cited by 94 · cited 1×
“The possible presence of distortions in wavelength scales of Keck/HIRES spectra was investigated by Griest et al. (2010) by comparing the ThAr wavelength scale with that established from I2-cell observations.”
MethodSelf-citationMurphy, M. T., Webb, J. K., & Flambaum, V. V. (2007) · Physical Review Letters · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.99.239001 · Cited by 91 · cited 4×
“The procedure for the selection of ThAr lines and the analysis leading to a wavelength solution follows that outlined in Murphy et al. (2007a).”
BackgroundMethodResultInfluentialSelf-citationFirst measurement of Mg isotope abundances at high redshifts and accurate estimate of Δ α/α
Agafonova, I. I., Molaro, P., Levshakov, S. A., & Hou, J. L. (2011) · Astronomy & Astrophysics · doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201016194 · Cited by 81
Self-citationUVES radial velocity accuracy from asteroid observations
Molaro, P. P., Levshakov, S. A., Monai, S., Centurión, M., Bonifacio, P., D’Odorico, S., & Monaco, L. (2008) · Astronomy and Astrophysics · doi:10.1051/0004-6361:20078864 · Cited by 76 · cited 2×
“Molaro et al. (2008a) compared the radial velocity measured in the two arms using the sunlight reflected by an asteroid, and came to a similar conclusion.”
ResultInfluentialSelf-citationVLT/UVES constraints on the cosmological variability of the fine-structure constant
Levshakov, S. A., Centurión, M., Molaro, P. P., & D’Odorico, S. (2005) · Astronomy and Astrophysics · doi:10.1051/0004-6361:20041827 · Cited by 74 · cited 3×
“Using just one ionic species alleviates the possibility that ionization effects may systematically affect ∆α/α (e.g. Levshakov et al. 2005).”
BackgroundResultInfluentialSelf-citationBounds on the fine structure constantvariability from Fe ii absorption lines in QSO spectra
Molaro, P. P., Reimers, D., Agafonova, I. I., & Levshakov, S. A. (2008) · The European Physical Journal Special Topics · doi:10.1140/epjst/e2008-00818-4 · Cited by 73 · cited 2×
“Molaro et al. (2008a) compared the radial velocity measured in the two arms using the sunlight reflected by an asteroid, and came to a similar conclusion.”
ResultInfluentialSelf-citationWAVELENGTH CALIBRATION OF THE VLT-UVES SPECTROGRAPH
Whitmore, J. B., Murphy, M. T., & Griest, K. (2010) · The Astrophysical Journal · doi:10.1088/0004-637x/723/1/89 · Cited by 72 · cited 3×
“Whitmore et al. (2010) repeated the same test for UVES and found similar effects, though the saw-tooth distortion shows reduced peak-to-peak velocity variations of ∼200 m s−1.”
BackgroundMethodInfluentialSelf-citationSrianand, R., Chand, H., Petitjean, P., & Aracil, B. (2007) · Physical Review Letters · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.99.239002 · Cited by 59 · cited 1×
“…Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile by other groups did not confirm the variation of α (Quast et al. 2004; Chand et al. 2004; Levshakov et al. 2005, 2006), though in some cases these analysis and uncertainty estimates have been challenged (Murphy et al. 2007b, 2008) (but see Srianand et al. 2007).”
ResultSelf-citationOlive, K. A., Peloso, M., & Uzan, J.-P. (2011) · Physical Review D · doi:10.1103/physrevd.83.043509 · Cited by 44 · cited 1×
“One can nevertheless reproduce it by constructing toy models, for example as the result of domains formed at spontaneous breaking of a discrete symmetry of a dilaton-like scalar field coupled to electromagnetism (Olive et al. 2011).”
BackgroundMolaro, P. P., Levshakov, S. A., Monai, S., Centurión, M., Bonifacio, P., D’Odorico, S., & Monaco, L. (2007) · arXiv (Cornell University) · doi:10.48550/arxiv.0712.3345 · Cited by 40 · cited 2×
“Molaro et al. (2008a) compared the radial velocity measured in the two arms using the sunlight reflected by an asteroid, and came to a similar conclusion.”
ResultInfluentialSelf-citationQSO 0347-383 and the invariance ofmp/mein the course of cosmic time
Wendt, M., & Molaro, P. P. (2012) · Astronomy and Astrophysics · doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201218862 · Cited by 39 · cited 2×
“Indeed, this effect has been measured by Wendt & Molaro (2012) by crosscorrelating 15 UVES spectra of quasar Q0347−383.”
BackgroundMethodSelf-citationVariation of fundamental parameters and dark energy: A principal component approach
Amendola, L., Leite, A. C. O., Martins, C. J. A. P., Nunes, N. J., Pedrosa, P. O. J., & Seganti, A. (2012) · Physical review. D. Particles, fields, gravitation, and cosmology/Physical review. D. Particles and fields · doi:10.1103/physrevd.86.063515 · Cited by 36 · cited 1×
“In addition to their intrinsic interest, these measurements (whether they are detections or null results) can shed light on the enigma of dark energy (Amendola et al. 2012).”
BackgroundSelf-citationWavelengths of the <?Pub Caret?>3d^6(^5D)4s a^6D−3d^5(^6S)4s4p y^6P multiplet of Fe II (UV 8)
Nave, G., & Sansonetti, C. J. (2011) · Journal of the Optical Society of America B · doi:10.1364/josab.28.000737 · Cited by 31 · cited 1×
“In particular, the laboratory wavelength for the Fe ii λ1608 transition was taken from Nave & Sansonetti (2011).”
MethodLevshakov, S. A., Centurión, M., Molaro, P. P., & Костина, М. В. (2006) · Astronomy and Astrophysics · doi:10.1051/0004-6361:200600001 · Cited by 24
Self-citationProbing variations in the fundamental constants with quasar absorption lines
Murphy, M. T. (2003) · UNSWorks (UNSW Sydney) · doi:10.5281/zenodo.57184 · Cited by 14
Self-citationSpectrographs, Asteroids and Constants
Molaro, P. P., Centurión, M., Monai, S., & Levshakov, S. A. (2011) · Astrophysics and space science proceedings · doi:10.1007/978-3-642-19397-2_17 · Cited by 1 · cited 1×
“We note that Molaro et al. (2011) compared solar features observed both with HARPS and UVES and found such ‘intra-order distortions’ in the UVES spectrum with a typical scale of ≈10 Å.”
MethodSelf-citation
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- King, 2009, Mem. Soc. Astron. It., 80, 864
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Challenges for Λ CDM: An update
Perivolaropoulos, L., & Skara, F. (2022) · New Astronomy Reviews · doi:10.1016/j.newar.2022.101659 · Cited by 1,130
Pepe, F. A., Cristiani, S., Rebolo, R., Santos, N. C., Dekker, H., Cabral, A., Marcantonio, P. D., Figueira, P., Curto, G. L., Lovis, C., et al. (2020) · Astronomy and Astrophysics · doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202038306 · Cited by 596
Self-citationTeleparallel gravity: from theory to cosmology
Bahamonde, S., Dialektopoulos, K. F., Escamilla‐Rivera, C., Farrugia, G., Gakis, V., Hendry, M., Hohmann, M., Said, J. L., Mifsud, J., & Valentino, E. D. (2022) · Reports on Progress in Physics · doi:10.1088/1361-6633/ac9cef · Cited by 668
Thirty Meter Telescope Detailed Science Case: 2015
Skidmore, W. (2015) · Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics · doi:10.1088/1674-4527/15/12/001 · Cited by 201
The status of varying constants: a review of the physics, searches and implications
Martins, C. J. A. P. (2017) · Reports on Progress in Physics · doi:10.1088/1361-6633/aa860e · Cited by 179
Self-citation
Metadata
- Authors
- Molaro, P., Centurión, M., Whitmore, J. B., Evans, T. M., Murphy, M. T., Agafonova, I. I., Bonifacio, P., D’Odorico, S., Levshakov, S. A., Lopez, S., Martins, C. J. A. P., Petitjean, P., Rahmani, H., Reimers, D., Srianand, R., Vladilo, G., & Wendt, M.
- Affiliations
- Universidade do Porto (PT)
- Trieste Astronomical Observatory (IT)
- Swinburne University of Technology (AU)
- Ioffe Institute (RU)
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- European Southern Observatory (DE)
- Saint Petersburg State Electrotechnical University (RU)
- Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IN)
- Universität Hamburg (DE)
- ORCID
- Venue
- Astronomy & Astrophysics
- Publisher
- EDP Sciences
- Published
- 2013-07
- Volume
- 555
- Pages
- A68
- ISSN
- 0004-6361 (ISSN-L)
- 1432-0746
- OpenAlex
- W1987305524
- Cited by
- 111
- References
- 38
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 15 · 2016: 19 · 2015: 16 · 2014: 20 · 2013: 5
- FWCI
- 10.80
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Astronomy and Astrophysics (publishedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
- HAL (submittedVersion)
- Americanae (AECID Library) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- publish.UP (University of Potsdam) (submittedVersion)
- LA Referencia (Red Federada de Repositorios Institucionales de Publicaciones Científicas) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Oskar-Bordeaux (Universite de Bordeaux) (submittedVersion)
- Swinburne figshare (Swinburne University of Technology) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (SFB 676, Teilprojekt C4)
- Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR-10-BLAN-0510, ANR-10)
- Indo-French Centre for the Promotion of Advanced Research
- Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Ensino Superior
- Australian Research Council (DP110100866)
- Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Ciência 2007, PTDC/FIS/111725/2009, PTDC/CTE-AST/098604/2008)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Cosmology and Gravitation Theories
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
- Keywords
- fine-structure constant variation, quasar absorption lines, fundamental physics tests
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
